Katie parks her 12 passenger van on the street (and half on the curb...). She rakes 3 piles of leaves for 90 minutes. She goes inside to start dinner. Door bell rings. Neighbor's friend has backed into the 12 passenger van and left a dent in the driver's door. Neighbor's friend leaves name, telephone number, and address.

Katie takes her 12 passenger van to the local body shop. Mechanic gives her an estimate of $700 and 3 days repair time. Neighbor's friend agrees to drop off a check to pay the bill.

Here's the problem. The reason Katie has a 12 passenger van is because she has 5 children. The Fleck's other vehicle? A Jeep Wrangler that seats 4. She has to go 3 days without the 12 passenger van (and the body shop is closed on weekends).

• Start with job times. If you work outside the home, obviously you already have a bit of a schedule framework in place. If you are the stay at home parent, keep your spouse's leaving/returning times in mind. I hate to sound all 50's housewife-ish but it is nice to have the kids off the ceiling, the one thousand piece lego set picked up, and the baby in a clean diaper when your spouse returns home from the "Man Party" (more on that another day). Besides you have to know what time he/she is driving home so you can call and ask them to pick up take-out for dinner.
  
  
• School Times and Extracurricular Activities. May or may not apply depending on the ages of your children. Pretty much the same as above but toss in a half hour before hand to handle emergencies: "Mom! I need a 3-D colored/labeled model of deoxyribonucleic acid today!" and "Mom! The baby ate my 3-D colored/labeled model of deoxyribonucleic acid!"
  
  
• Meal Times. Ya Gotta Eat! Fed kids are happy kids. Think Snicker commercials. Junior just chewed a hole in your expensive draperies? An unfortunate side effect of hunger. If there's a regular time during the day when the kids seem to hit the wall and nothing you do alleviates this (naps, activities, a change of scenery), try a snack. I'm a big fan of "small meals several times a day." This makes a lot of sense with little kids and their small stomachs. A mid-morning snack is common with young toddlers, especially if they eat a light breakfast. Most adults need afternoon snacks, kids even more so.
  
  My son Zach was so taken with scheduled meal times that at no matter where we were (exploring the wilds of Africa, flying to the moon, or more likely the grocery store) at 9am, 11am, 3pm, or 6pm, he had better be sitting at the kitchen table with food in front of him or the world was ending. Even though we don't follow those times anymore due to school (it's more like 8:15am, noon, 3:45pm, 6:30pm now), on weekends he'll still say "3pm! Snack!"

• Sleep Times. I had a tough debate with myself on whether Meal Times or Sleep Times were more important. I love me some sleeping children! I'd rather tear off my fingernails with rusty pliers than give up the kids' 8pm bedtime. But food is generally more important in the whole "staying alive" department so there ya go. 6 month or older babies generally like two short naps (1 morning, 1 afternoon) or one long nap (afternoon). At some point (i.e. before you ready), they completely give up naps. Be flexible as sleep habits change. If your 3 year old is cranky mid-afternoon, maybe he could use a half an hour of "quiet time" where uh, he watches a brain neuron stimulating educational TV show (yeah that's it!).
  
  Remember toddler naps often mean a later bedtime. So if you want an earlier bedtime, you might have to deal with a grumpy child for a bit in the late afternoon. If you have one of those kids who runs on a cat nap or two, I'm so sorry. I mean, enjoy your time together and in 12 years when they hit high school, then they'll make up for their lack of sleeping now.
  
  
• Fun Stuff! (Or Housework for Parents) This is the most flexible part of the schedule. Go crazy with it! Schedule some coloring for 9am, sorting socks at 10:45am, Dora the Explorer at 11:30am, scraping encrusted toothpaste off the bathroom sink at 1:15pm. See? Fun for all!

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• The "road hog" in front of you on Main Street is a farmer's combine.
• No social events can be scheduled when the school gym floor is being varnished.
• Everyone knows all the news before it's published; they just read the hometown paper to see if the publisher got it right.
• You have to name six surrounding towns to explain to people where you're from.
• Driving cars up and down the main drag is a universal high school experience.
• You can name everyone you graduated with.
• You know what 4-H and FFA are.
• School gets canceled for state sporting events.
• It was cool to date someone from the neighboring town.
• You had senior skip day.
• Your teachers remember when they taught your parents.

• When you plan an orgy and an Euchre game breaks out.
• You have no problem spelling or pronouncing "Terre Haute."
• You live in a city ... and there's a cornfield in your backyard.
• High school basketball game draws a bigger crowd on the weekend nights than movie theaters.
• You can see at least 2 basketball hoops from your yard.
• The biggest question of your youth was "IU or Purdue?"
• Indianapolis is the "big city".
• "Getting caught by a train" is a legitimate excuse for being late to school.
• You can say "French Lick" without laughing out loud.
• There's actually a college near you named "Ball State."
• You think the state Bird is Larry.
• There really is more than corn in Indiana. There's soybeans, too.

• Your idea of a three-way is chili over spaghetti topped with cheddar.
• You hate Cleveland, but you don't know why, and you've never been there.
• You think Dayton is a Third World country.
• Losing football teams draw more fans than winning baseball teams.
• Indiana is about 20 miles away, but it takes about four hours to get there.
• You drive to Columbus or Louisville to avoid the prices at the Cincinnati airport.
• City council members hold debates on whether or not they should debate in the first place.
• You think Kentucky is only slightly more civilized than Afghanistan.
• Tourists still flock downtown to catch a glimpse of cast members from "WKRP," even though the show hasn't aired on network television since 1984, and the show was filmed in LA anyway.
• You've been to California, Wyoming, Coney Island, and Over-the-Rhine in one day.
• If you do something -- anything -- in public long enough, sooner or later it will be banned.
• Your low-fat diet is never low enough to exclude Graeter's ice cream.
• If necessary, the city could easily be sliced into two new cities: East and West, and it would take 20 years for anyone to notice something happened.
• You can accurately judge people's social status by which Kroger's store they frequent.
• You know in which state the Greater Cincinnati Airport is located.

• You don't think of Florida first when someone mentions Miami.
• You know what a buckeye really is, and have a recipe for candy ones.
• "Toward the lake" means "north" and "toward the river" means "south."
• You can spell words like Cuyahoga, Olentangy, Bellefontaine, and Tuscarawas.

• Greg's coming home tonight!
• National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) sign-ups start today! (I'll post more about that another day)
• I just baked 2 batches of apple muffins for Ally's class. Later I plan to make a pineapple upside down cake in one of my cast iron skillets. Baking always puts me in a good mood.
• The only housework to do today is laundry and I like laundry.
• I'm going fabric shopping for the kids' Halloween costumes this afternoon.
• I've lost a pound and a half (yep, I'm shallow like that *winks*).
• The weather is beau-ti-ful!